This day in history - December 11

[seamusTX]

1928 - Police in Argentina arrested terrorists who had nearly completed a plan to bomb a train that was carrying President-Elect Herbert Hoover, who was on an overseas good-will tour in that country. The incident was not publicized at the time, and is forgotten history now.

1936 - King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom abdicated to marry his American mistress, who had not yet bothered to finalize her divorce.

Normally I couldn't care less about this kind of garbage, but Edward was a Nazi sympathizer and personal acquaintance of Adolph Hitler. History might have turned out a bit differently had he remained on the throne.

1941 - The U.S. declared war on Italy and Germany, after Italy and Germany declared war on the U.S. the same day.

This is a newspaper article of the day: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general ... ml#article" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It was the last time that Congress exercised its constitutional power to declare war. All subsequent wars have been based on some kind of legal fiction, usually in connection with the United Nations.

1961 - Overt U.S. military action began in Vietnam.

1972 - Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt became the last men to land on the moon, on the Apollo 17 mission.

Probably the next will be Chinese.

- Jim